Human Rights for Intercountry Adoptees

It fills me with hope and inspiration to see intercountry adoptees growing in our understanding of the wider context of intercountry adoption to include the politics, ethics and rights of intercountry adoptees.

Years ago, I started off having very little understanding of my own adoption journey, let alone the bigger picture. As the years went by, I explored my own issues and then through reaching out and connecting to many adoptee peers, I started to realise the similarities within our journeys, regardless of birth country. Finally, I came to understand — I am but one of hundreds of thousands around the world, impacted by the policies and governing international agreements that indelibly re-shape our lives forever via intercountry adoption. My journey of understanding is reflected around the globe as we adult intercountry adoptees mature enmasse and start to speak out and question the fundamentals of intercountry adoption.

To illustrate this point, I want to share an essay by Sri Lankan adoptee, Gabbie Beckley, also adopted and raised in Australia. She is a social worker and has submitted this essay to fulfil the requirements of her MSW Masters in Social Work. She has reunited with her Sri Lankan family and was adopted by an Australian family who always supported her and enabled her to embrace and learn about her birth culture.

Gabbie has also journeyed and explored what adoption has meant for her individually and has travelled beyond that now, to understand the larger picture of what intercountry adoption means for many of us worldwide. I loved her ending paragraph in which she rightly questions why our human rights as adoptees are not considered beyond childhood.